Happy Halloween Everybody!

Unlike in Illinois, we haven't had many trick-or-treaters in Hawaii. I don't see a lot of homes decorated for Halloween here either. Then again, I know other neighborhoods in Hawaii do take Halloween more seriously and it's fun to see what sort of decorations they put up.

I've seen a lot of  pretty amazing costumes for sale at Sam's Club or Costco. I know my grandchildren have been dressed up in some pretty awesome costumes too. It's so much easier now to just go out and buy a ready made costume.

However, when our children were growing up, many of the kids (or parents) made their own.  Tiffany and Keola started out as rice bags. Yup. Nobody knew what they were supposed to be, but it didn't matter. Tif wore the rice bag first. No, we didn't eat that much rice. I think they came from Art's family restaurant.

And Keola was next.

He didn't care. The treat was the most important thing.

When they got a little older, they had their own ideas so the rice bag was put into retirement.

What were your kids' favorite costumes?

POSTSCRIPT 1:

I wrote earlier that I don't see many homes being decorated for Halloween here in Hawaii. Well... a friend of mine just texted me this photo from her neighborhood. OK... I'm impressed.

POSTSCRIPT 2:

Correction: My brother tells me that when we were growing up on the sugar plantation camp, my parents did buy 50 lb bags of rice. 

Teal Pumpkin Project

Have you heard of the Teal Pumpkin Project?

I noticed this blue pumpkin in front of Tif and Ed's fireplace and asked her about it.

Our town was known for trying to be inclusive and understanding. I guess that's why our kids liked it so much.

Apparently, you can leave a teal colored pumpkin out on our front stoop so children with allergies would know they could stop by for some non-food toy or fun thing.

I asked Tif if any child did stop by for that sort of safe treat but she said she didn't have anyone ask for it last year. Our little neighborhood was known for being a safe place. There were parents at Halloween who would stop by at the entrance of our little "village" and drop off their children knowing they'd be safe. 

We did love our neighborhood back then. It was close knit and you felt your kids would be safe to run around without your watching them every second because so many neighbors would keep an eye out for each other's children. 

I wonder what it's like now.

POSTSCRIPT:

A friend just told me that there's also another meaning for a child who is carrying a BLUE pumpkin. The blue pumpkin would signify that the child has an autism spectrum disorder. It would alert people to show some kindness and understanding for a child who might not be able to say, "Trick or Treat" or behave as other children. 

Acorns and Pine Cones

We bought our Illinois home (built in 1950) in1975. Our daughter and husband then bought that home in 2006 when we moved to Hawaii and we bought my mother's home in Hawaii after we renovated it. Tiffany wanted to move back to her childhood home because she'd always loved the neighborhood and had friends here.

Art and I were happy that we'd now have a familiar place to go back to for our visits. This is all just a prelude to this post about our trees. 

Art LOVES trees. That's why he's not happy that we don't have many tall trees in our neighborhood in Hawaii.

When the kids were in grade school. I think Keola might have been in 4th grade. Maybe. The school had passed out little pine trees for Arbor Day. This seedling was very little. It must have been about 9 inches tall. We planted it together in the little area between our house and the neighbor's. I was very dubious that it would grow much. I thought it would get trampled by raccoons or skunks or whatever.

Well... I guess it survived. On several visits since we noticed it had grown a bit.

But what a surprise when we went back this time! And the most amazing thing we saw? Two pine cones!!!

Tif told us that the swamp oak tree had also produced acorns for the first time this year. What is it about 2023?

She sent this photo of the acorns that had fallen on the ground.

She also sent this photo the week before we came to show all the acorns on the tree. There were a few left on the tree when we got there, but the army of squirrels from all around town had raided just about everything that could be gathered.

I guess 2023 is the year of the nuts, acorns and pine cones. We did see other neighbors' trees absolutely loaded with chestnuts and all kinds of other nuts. I did read that 75-200 years is the prime time for the swamp oak to produce acorns. So... I guess this is about right.

What has it been like in your neighborhood? Do you have a lot of large trees?

Using Online Check-In for the First Time

We've never done the online check-in for United Airlines. Something about doing it from my cellphone kind of spooked me. There was comfort in doing it the old way from the kiosk and so on and so forth and getting a hard copy paper ticket.

But this time, when the United app sent a message that I should do the online check-in, I held my breath and tried it. If my kids were here, they would have held my hand through it but I had to take the risk on my own. So I did it.

Gosh.... It was easy.

The tricky part was finding the "Bag Drop Shortcut" which was a bit of a walk but there were helpers who pointed the way there.

The cheerful attendant took our bags, labeled them and sent them on their way.

We left at 5:15 in the afternoon.

This was supposed to be a red-eye flight, but I can NEVER sleep. The flight was totally FULL.

And then... there it was below us. 

Chicago.

It was 6:15 in the morning. The flight was ON TIME! How amazing is that?

We had not been to Chicago since February of 2020! 

Can it really be that we hadn't been back in almost 4 years? 

It was a nostalgic, weird sort of feeling to be walking again through the familiar corridors of O'Hare Airport.

We saw that the longest lines were at McDonalds and Starbucks.

Our daughter, Tiffany came to pick us up before going to work. She had the guestroom ready for us along with toiletries, towels, extra blankets and even breakfast food. (Extra blankets? It was sweltering in Hawaii!)

Our granddaughter was off to high school and then an hour later, our son-in-law was off to O'Hare for his week long job in another state. Tif told us we'd come at a crazy time for all of them.

Once everyone was gone, the travel exhaustion hit us. We fell asleep for about two hours and then spent the time unpacking and etc.

This was going to be a very short trip because we can't leave mom alone for long. My brother comes to stay with her, but I feel bad having to rely on him to stay at our house for any long period. 

Tiffany returned from work a little early and she prepared chicken shawarma for dinner. It was wonderful! 

KC then left for her dance rehearsals and we spent the evening with Tif catching up and just talking and talking until around 10:00 at night when we welcomed KC home. (It was 5:00 PM in Hawaii.)

And then we crashed...totally exhausted. Our circadian rhythm would need several days to adjust itself. 

Sad and Happy Hiatus

I'm afraid I'm taking another two week hiatus. 

We're leaving for Chicago to attend Peggy's funeral. Her husband is expecting us and I was touched that her son posted the photo of the time they came for Tiffany's wedding and sat with us. My brother is dropping everything to come and stay with mom. Thank goodness for awesome brothers and sister-in-laws!

This is a bit stressful because I usually need 2 weeks to think, create lists and pack before a trip. 4 days was hard. Luckily, Tif said, "You're coming to Chicago. If you forget something you can certainly get it here." She then sent all the Fall/Winter clothing we have stored in their attic. 

Incredibly, we are coincidentally going to be there for my granddaughter's special high school performance. We can hardly believe the timing of it. We've only been able to see her dance in videos since COVID started. The tickets were all sold out so my daughter asked a good friend if she'd be willing to let us have one of her tickets so we could see KC on stage. I told Tif we didn't want to take away her opportunity to see KC dance. She chuckled and said she and her friend had actually bought tickets for two shows.

So it will be a mixture of tremendous sadness and happy pride.

Tif has warned us that the costumes will not be the modest, pretty outfits we've seen so far in videos. The girls are older now and it will be more revealing. 😮

"Uhhhhhmmm..." said KC. "You might not quite understand the dialog too."  

I guess this is an artistic performance incorporating acting, dance, etc. I suppose I'll find out more when I get there.  

Why do I suddenly feel a bit older? 

Well, now I'm curious. 

Always in My Heart

I've been dreading the time when I would write this post...

When we first moved into the Chicagoland suburb, I was a tad bit nervous. Our small area of about 100 homes had only one other Asian family for a long time. When we bought the home, we didn't know what the neighbors would be like. Coming from Hawaii and a sugar plantation camp where everybody was some Asian mixture, learning that the community we were moving into was almost all white was.... well...a spooky shock. I'd heard about racial prejudice on the mainland. (Art had spent quite a bit of time going to school in the Midwest and being stationed on the East coast when he was serving in the Air Force so he was used to it.)

There were two other families that were moving into the community that same year.

Peggy moved in with her family two doors down from us. I can't remember who called who on the phone that first time. However, Peggy and I talked and talked. I remember looking out the window and seeing the sun set and we were still talking.

A couple of years later, her daughter and my son were born 8 days apart. Peggy encouraged me to learn to drive so we could carpool together. She even took me to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my license.

We went to lots and lots of garage and house sales together just for the fun of it and dragged all our kids with us.

We told each other everything that was going on in our minds and hearts. We were "Aunties" to each other's children just like in Hawaii.

When my son broke his arm on the school playground, she insisted on us corralling all our kids into her station wagon and driving us the long distance to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital. She didn't want me driving. It was a shock when X-rays showed how bad the break was, so she took Tiffany home with her while I stayed with Keola late into the night for the surgery. Art was in D.C. at a meeting at the time.

Life went on. I went back to work teaching first graders and she moved away with her family for her husband's new job. But we always kept in touch.

We were able to visit through all their moves. 

When our daughter, Tiffany got married, Peggy and her husband drove all the way to Chicago from Ohio to attend the wedding.

I wish they could have come to Hawaii too after we moved here.

Peggy gave me this wall hanging to go with the others she's given me through the years. 

Peggy has had health issues throughout the years but she never let them restrict or get her feeling down. She loved everyone unconditionally and was loved in return. Her family knew what a treasure they had for their wife and mother. 

The years flew by, but we made it a point to get together whenever we could, along with our husbands and kids.

I knew three years ago just before COVID hit, that her health was declining but she reassured me that she was getting better.

I clung to that. I couldn't accept anything else.

Then last week, her loving husband called to tell me Peggy was in hospice.

No.

No.

On Monday night, I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed and started talking to Peggy in my head and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, Peggy's husband called to tell me she'd passed away during the night.

I'm looking at Peggy's wall now with the wall hangings she's given me in the past.

I've been very blessed with many amazing friends in Illinois. 

But Peggy was the first.

And yes, she'll always be in my heart and always a part of me.

DeCluttering

 A friend recently sent me an article about decluttering from Consumer Reports.

We actually decluttered a LOT when we moved from Illinois to Hawaii. We had to because shipping things from Illinois to Hawaii was considered an International move. I guess it's because it's over an ocean. That was in 2008. So it's been 15 years.

Since mom had her older (maybe antique) things and we had our newer things, there's a lot of stuff we don't use at all. And in those 15 years... well... we did get a few more things that seemed as though we needed them.

Some of the kitchen drawers have gotten so full that I either can't close it easily or fit anything else in it. That's been annoying but I wasn't motivated to get rid of anything. However, this article was just the push I needed.

This was originally the knife drawer. But things got really messy. So I decided to get rid of some of those knives and figured I'd just donate them to Goodwill.

However, Art stopped me and said mom uses the big one to cut the hard kabocha.

OK, back in the drawer.

OK...

So that went back in the drawer. Well, anyway, the drawer is neater now. I'm sorry I didn't do a Before and After photo which would have really shown the difference.

Once that was done, I took out several scoops and spatulas from the large utensil drawer. The drawer doesn't get stuck anymore.

I was also in the bathroom and noticed this top drawer between Art and my sink was SUPER cluttered so I found a container and a small box to organize it. AND I tossed out a whole bunch of old band-aids, etc.

So now I'm walking around the house looking at what else can go into the donation pile.

Hmmm... I just got a message that the nearby Buddhist Temple is having a Rummage Sale. I will have to start seriously looking for things to pass on to somebody else.

But then the other day, my brother (who used to work at the Honolulu Police Department crime lab) said, "Hmmm... if you donate those knives and someone uses them for a crime, you know your DNA will be on it right?" 

I think he was joking. Right? 😏

POSTSCRIPT:

I'm making progress. I'll be donating these things to the temple. OK, not the salad bowl though because my sister-in-law remembers mom serving her famous macaroni salad in it when my nephews were little.

Chinese Lantern Lily

When we were in Tokyo in June, we passed through a shopping area and I saw a display of flowers that caught my eye. I thought they were artificial flowers at first because they seemed so unusual.

Maybe it was the lighting or whatever, but I had to take several photos of it.

I did read on Wikipedia that: 

The corms of Sandersonia aurantiaca contain levels of the toxic alkaloid colchicine comparable to those in Gloriosa superba, another very poisonous plant belonging to the family Colchicaceae.

I think that sign for the flower says Sandersonia with a Japanese accent.

Have you ever seen this flower? I know I've never seen it in Hawaii or any of our travels.